Reviews

Oceans saved me from my first quarter of grad school. See, I like to listen to music while I do schoolwork, but I can only enjoy very specific types of tunes. Usually, it’s melodic, modal jazz along the lines of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue or Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debbie. If it’s not that, it’s the type of instrumental-ish, building indie that Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Mogwai, and Sigur Ros have perfected over the years. When Nothing Collapses arrived in my mailbox, I was struck by how simple and beautiful it all was; there are violins, the occasional outburst of desperate vocals, and a sense of swelling urgency. “Boy Detective” probably puts the band’s best foot forward. One of the longer cuts, it ends with some great group singing and reverbed guitars that serve the song’s climax and dÈnouement perfectly.

If you’re into the instrumental stylings of the aforementioned bands but with maybe a bit of the heaviness of Pelican’s better work (for me, Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw) and maybe a touch of Envy as well, then this is for you. This is great writing music, great music to work around, at least for me. I have a hard time really getting into albums without singing because I’m always a sucker for a good hook, but I also fall for strange things and this is certainly one of them. There is a nice balance here and I think a bit of room for improvement, namely in some of the longer passages which suffer a bit because of their length. The more concise this type of music is, the better, though I see some great things ahead for Oceans and I really would love to see them live. All told, this is a great debut and an incredibly promising start. Well done.